Fine Art Gallery on Alberta Street in Portland

Monthly Archives: December 2016

Main GalleryTen artists from Willamette Tapestry Artists will be showing a wide variety of tapestries. Particpating artists: Janet Christensen, Kiki Dembrow, Janet Dorow Barbara Hitzemann, Sandy Kennard, Kevynne Layne, Natalie Novak, Phoebe McAfee, Terry Olson and Pam Patrie. The group formed from weavers from the Damascus Fiber Arts school. Tapestry is a form of textile art, traditionally woven on both vertical and horizontal looms. Tapestry is weft-faced weaving, in which all the warp threads are hidden in the completed work, unlike cloth weaving where both the warp and the weft threads may be visible. In tapestry weaving, weft yarns are typically discontinuous; the artisan interlaces the coloured weft back and forth in its own small pattern area to create the image. According to Phoebe McAfee “There are many approaches of techniques to creating a tapestry; traditional European, Aubusson, Navajo. It is a basic simple method of weaving, but the creativity comes to life in the imagery. ” The contempoart element comes to play in work such as Terry Olson’s piece about her grandparents, “The Milkmaid and the Boss”. Olson teaches at the Damascus School and is a board member of the American Tapestry Alliance, the largest tapestry organization in America. The Willamette Tapestry Artists seek to promote understanding and appreciation of both the art and craft of contemporary tapestry.

Phoebe McAfee

Terry L Olson

Terry L Olson

Kiki Dembrow

Sandy Kennard

Natalie Novak

Babara Hitzemann

Feature Area

Patrick George “Doric Electrication” intaglio

Patrick George, a printmaker will have intaglio and letterpress prints. His work is influenced by hisbackground in architecture. He traces his inspiration for printmaking back to Parmigianino, the Italian Mannerist painter, whose invention of the technique of etching led him into alchemy. “I trace my interest in bookmaking back to Vitruvius, whose illustrations in his ten books on architecture have never been seen and so persist through time as enigmas. I believe in the depth and elusiveness and layering of meaning, and I encourage the viewer to create new interpretations through subtle suggestion and the destabilization of signification.” Patrick is an architect who has practiced printmaking at the Fort Mason Center for Arts & Culture and the University of Pennsylvania, and bookmaking at Sterling Type Foundry and the San Francisco Center for the Book. He currently works out of his studio in the evening shadow of Mount Tabor with a Sturges etching press and Vandercook proof press.